Martin Scorsese Exhibition Comes Alive At Victoria Street

Susan Bye and Bridget Hanna gave students a taste of the film icon’s show, focusing on highlights to see when they visited ACMI later that week.

Despite being considered one of the world’s most influential directors for the past several decades, for many of the Trinity students Scorsese was a name only known through his most recent films The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and Hugo (2011).

However, Ms Bye took students back to classic Scorsese films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990), dissecting the films for their auteur techniques.

Ms Bye discussed with students how Scorsese’s mother would often appear in his movies, featuring in his family documentary Italianamerican (1974) and most notably as an Italian mamma in Goodfellas. Students were told stories of how an asthmatic, sickly 11-year-old living in ‘Little Italy’ New York began living through cinema, and creating storyboards for imaginary films. Even then Scorsese’s destiny as an actor and director seemed clear.

The exhibition’s themes, which include family, brothers, anti-heroes and New York, are explored through an extensive range of film clips and items from Scorsese’s personal collection of celebrity letters, costumes, storyboards and other cinema memorabilia.

The exhibition runs until 18 September, 2016. For more information visit: https://www.acmi.net.au/scorsese

Photo: Sam Hu